


know your face in the morning sun

by VerdantMoth



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Established Relationship, M/M, Nostalgia, Post-Endgame, The World Is Healing, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:02:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26094574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Before is inconsiquestial. Before is a dream, a myth. Before is nostalgia drenched photoes and sepai stained songs and corn fade memories.The sun above them fades, gives into the slump of the world and turns a pinkish, musky orange.
Relationships: Harley Keener/Peter Parker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	know your face in the morning sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Areiton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/gifts).



> feel better dove, have soft nostalgia

The sun rises, and it is furious. It is blistering reds and deep blues and violent purples. The sun rises. It is ash clogged and ghostly. 

The sun rises, but New York is silent, haunted. 

It smells stale, like tarnished metal. Smells like dust, memory fade. Like old dreams. 

Harley walks the streets, and he _wonders_.

What was New York before? Who were it’s people? Not the heroes, not the lawyers, not the artist. It’s _people_. 

The Harleys of New York. The little guys farming potatoes and building engines and mending clothes.

It doesn’t really matter.

Before is…

Before is inconsiquestial. Before is a dream, a myth. Before is nostalgia drenched photoes and sepai stained songs and corn fade memories. 

Harley kinda wonders if anyone besides him even remembers before. 

Probably not. He’d lost every one before the world went to shit anway. Not that Tony ever really _abandoned_ him. But Tennesee was a long way from outer space, and aliens usually tried to take over the big cities. Not the country sides. 

Harley shakes himself from his own musings. 

He wasn’t in New York to philosiphieze life. Couldn’t even if he tried.

He was in New York because he was older.

He was like the city. The sunrise. Beat up, battered. Still standing, still breathing.

Wiser, more tired.

Still. He’s _survived._ And maybe he wouldn’t have recognized himself if he’d fixed his own potato gun, but he stands in the city of memorials and he breaths in old air and grief.

Harley checks his phone, flicks through a screens and finds the address again. 

Just a few blocks over, past where the Tower once stood. 

Harley thinks, _Wish I’d seen the Tower in all of its glory._

He shakes the thought immediately, because he _likes_ having pieces of the avengers no one else does. Visits to his farm, to the county fair. The awe of his town as Harley Keener was toted around as the adopted child of The Avengers. 

Even flirting with Tony’s other kid. The little spider punk.

Harley takes a left, then cuts through an alley. The sun is struggling in the sky, light pelting the thick, hazy clouds as best as possible, but the earth is a cold place these days. New York is awash in the grey of forgetfulness. 

The glass of the little store is smeared in grit Harley couldn’t even dream of naming. All he can see in the reflection behind him are brown eyes he could never forget. Thick lashed, older than they should be, kinder. Wilder. Grief struck and resolute. 

“You’re late, Peter,” Harley grins. 

Peter leans in to him, wraps him tight in a hug and breaths in. “How’d you-”

“I know your eyes in the morning sun, Pete. I know them in every light, the moon, the empty evening, the bright glow of a hospital and the mute greens of the dense forest.” Harley turns around and licks at his cheek, just to make Peter’s nose curl. “I’d know your eyes if I forgot my own name.”

“Poetic,” Peter says gently. “And yet the sun is barely up and your already grease drenched.”

“Needed to fix Bucky’s bike again,” Harley says. 

Peter’s eyes go all misty the way they do. He’s still adjusting to the newer, younger heroes. He’s the last of the pre-Thanos heroes. The last of the beginning. He’s not old, barely at the end of his 30’s. But he’s survived so much, lost so much. 

The sun above them fades, gives into the slump of the world and turns a pinkish, musky orange. Peter takes his hand, slumps into a divey little tea and sub shop, and Harley grins big and bright.

“Fixed your bike,” he announces. 

“What about DUM-E?” Tony demands. Steve gently bumps his shoulder but Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Told you old man, you gotta come help me.”


End file.
